Memories of old Pupa

Hirshel:

I saw this yesterday in a Satmar shul. This is a book published by a Jew Ortner; (originally from Galicia) its in back of his sefer of sermons. He can quote from Reb Chatzkel Sarna to Rav Amiel, and everything in between. Looks like a cool jew who davened in meor hagolah Montreal by the Reb Shaye Yakov thé son of the Skulener, who gives a haskoma.  These 3 pages I send you say a whole lot. He and his brothers learned in Pupa. They were from Preshov, by the Galicia border. 280 boys learned there.  They had a list who goes to mikvah, and you didn't get hot soup if u did not go. Pupa Ruv gave שיריים then already, lit Chanukah licht like a real Rebbe, meaning very late, 2.5 hours after the z'man, with a few hundred boys looking on - more than he had in NY. Not before he went to an icy lake to toyvel beforehand. It seems that Ortner had no personal relationship with the Pupa Rebbe, Look at the schedule: 4:45am wakeup time. 5:30am by the גמרא already שוין נאך די מקוה. I don't see why they woke up the boys so early; The learning was not so great and important that they needed so many hours.  In Poland Jews were already almost all exterminated r"l, and in the Hungarian Yeshivos they served chicken and sometimes beef with shmaltz.   Not bad. The old Badansky bachi looked like a generous person, gave good food. Hungarian women may have been holy, but spoke no yiddish. But we knew that. All in all it seems like in the holy town of Pupa they emphasized chasidus more than Torah.

Click to enlarge. Read and enjoy!

a tale of two ראשי ישיבה

What follows in this week's Mishpacha magazine is the usual "pick a city and insert Yeshiva's name here. How such-and-such mande such-and-such city into an oasis of Torah." [I should know. It's tough putting out riveting material every week.] So I didn't really bother reading the article, although there were some cute pictures there. The thing is, he (RYMK of Denver) does smile in many of the later pictures! But for some reason this is what they chose to put at the forefront. I guess it makes for a good read bait. I guess Rabbi Wasserman (left) was the one you went to if you wanted to go home or go lie down in middle of seder.

Am I scraping the bottom of the barrel here? Maybe.

life in pre-War Telshe and Lithuania

The following are pictures recently received via email. They were sent to me by R' Doniel Schochet, a grandson of the late Rabbi Dov Yehuda Schochet, last of Toronto. Mostly of Telshe and Lituania. Some Switzerland and other places. I'm not gonna bother and watermark all of them, but can you be nice enough not to take them and publish them as your own, please? 

Telshe Yeshiva, 1932/5692. Of the 5 members of the הנהלה pictured, Reb Avrohom Yitzchok Bloch, Reb Zalman Bloch and Reb Ezriel Rabinovich were murdered with the Yeshiva and townspeople on 20 Tammuz, 5701. Reb Elya Meir Bloch and Reb Mottel Katz were in America and were thus saved. Their wives and children, however, were murdered, הי"ד.

Telsher Bochurim, Elul, 5684/1924, Rabbi Dov Y Shochet, standing, 2nd from left

Telsher Bochurim, RDY Shochet seated 2nd left. Note picture on wall of Reb Yosef Leib Bloch of Telshe, aka Der Alter Rov, who passed away in 5690/1930.

a Chevra Shas, somewhere in di Lita, (after all, where else did they finish Shas?) Adar 5690/1930

First graduating class of Yavne, the Telshe Girls' High School/Gymnasium, 1926/5786. Reb Mottel Katz, son-in-law of Reb Yosef Leib Bloch, אב"ד ור"מ טלז, pictured, right, with long beard. I count 9 students and 8 (!) staff.

Sunday Morning Links

Yeshiva Dropouts get caught supplying cheap ammo to the DoD
My Mother's Yiddish
The Economist: Shtetl's of the Mind

Sunday Morning Links

BOCHURIM STRIKE IN RADIN

They look at us like some never-before-seen tribe in the Amazon

$1800 gets you 2 double beds and boring speeches in Woodcliff Lake, NJ

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik elected to the position of "Chairman of the National Executive" of the Agudath Israel of America (1940)



Listen from 17 minutes and so for like 2 minutes. Such foolishness. Rabbi Brog has an audience listening to his speeches? He doesn't really get his message across. I mean no disrespect, but it's poshut hard to listen to! Is he R' Avigdor Miller's grandson? Was this RAM's general view on Chassidus as well?

ר' יואלי ראטה ברענגט אריין אביסל "אמירה רכה" ביי אים אין ישיבה - COMPLETE VIDEO

Attorney and activist Mrs. Ruchie Freier takes time out her "azoy bizi" schedule and visits Rabbi Yoeli Roth's Yeshivah. The haters and those looking for controversy and/or reasons to hate seem to have found one. Vos heist! a woman speaking to bochurim?! What will they do next, have co-ed classes? Then those girls will put on tefillin, of course. You can tell from the body language, the twisting of the beard, that both Rabbi Roth and his colleague are a bit uncomfortable, but heck, so would I! But the lads sure seem to have enjoyed their minute with the lady!